


Parents' Evening

by diapason



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Child AU, DadSchlatt, Elementary School, Gen, No Romance, schlatt is 24, teacher puffy, tommy and tubbo are six, wilbur is 22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diapason/pseuds/diapason
Summary: Phil's busy, leading Schlatt and Wilbur to be forced to attend the same parent-teacher meeting for their respective responsibilities.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 52
Kudos: 482





	Parents' Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhimsicalWhespir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimsicalWhespir/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS WEAST sorry i took a few days to finish this but i hope you enjoy!

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m his dad. What the fuck are  _ you  _ doing here?”

“Phil’s busy tonight. I’m standing in.”

“Shouldn’t you have sent your older brother instead?”

“Low blow, Schlatt.”

“You deserve it, you bastard.”

“I bet you’ve been drinking.”

“I bet you’re fuckin’ high, the way you never raise your voice.”

“It’s called setting a good example in front of the children!”

“Ah, fuck the kids. They’re only here because they have to be. We’re only talkin’ because Schlatt and Soot are so close in the alphabet, right?”

“Yeah. If I were Wilbur Watson I bet I’d never even have met you. That’d be a fucking blessing.”

“Shut up, asshole, I think we’re up next.”

Wilbur and Schlatt waited in a silence soaked with aggression for their appropriate kids’ names to be called. Parents’ Evening was a chore they would much rather have left behind in their own childhoods, but Phil had business to attend to, and Schlatt was (however reluctantly) a single father now that his ex-girlfriend had dumped the child on him with little warning a few years back. Therefore, here they sat in a brightly-coloured classroom, on child-sized chairs and with uncomfortably straight backs, waiting for their little group to meet Miss Puffy and find out how the Year 2 class was getting on. Around them older parents, some approaching their thirties, chattered amicably about what little Timmy and Tammy had been up to at home lately - nobody spared a glance at Schlatt and Wilbur, who’d both aimed to place themselves riiight at the back for this exact reason. Get in, learn about the kid, get out. It should have been easy.

“Alright, can we see parent group S to Z now please?”

Awkwardly, they stood and filed out behind a couple of other parents. In the hallway, they saw classrooms full of similarly engaged adults eager to learn about their little one’s schoolwork and effort and participation and all that shit. Schlatt and Wilbur couldn’t honestly have cared less - but it was their obligation. They were led to the library, a cozy environment covered in beanbag chairs and tiny shelves of tiny books for tiny readers, and seated in thankfully more appropriate fold-out chairs for their adult frames.

Through the windows on the far wall they could see the little grassy quad area. Tommy and Tubbo were outside, apparently playing aeroplanes from the way they were dive-bombing each other with arms outstretched, falling into tackles and fits of laughter as six-year-olds so excelled at doing. Wilbur and Schlatt couldn’t help but hold back smiles to see the kid so happy.

“Alright, welcome parents and guardians all! My name’s Miss Puffy, I’ve been teaching your children for two or three months now. So who do we have here, if you all don’t mind me asking?”

The parents went down the line, introducing themselves as Mr and Mrs Young, Mr Velvet, Mrs Tucker, and then all eyes fell on Wilbur and Schlatt.

“Er, Wilbur Soot. I’m here for Tommy.”

“Oh, wonderful! You… wouldn’t happen to be the father?”

“No no no no no! I’m just Tommy’s brother. His dad’s busy tonight.”

“Alright, that’s perfectly fine. And yourself, sir?”

“Schlatt. Here for Tubbo Schlatt.”

“And you’re…”

Schlatt blinked at the accusation. “No, I’m his dad. What, do I not look like a dad?”

“You look like a drunk,” Wilbur muttered, out of Miss Puffy’s range of hearing, and received a swift punch to the arm.

“Alright, Mr Schlatt, it’s good to meet you! And now if everybody’s introduced we can go ahead and talk about the children.”

“Great, great.” Schlatt leaned back in the chair and it creaked threateningly. “What’s the little bastard been up to these days, anyway?”

Miss Puffy covered her mouth in a moment of shock. “Mr Schlatt, I’m gonna have to ask you not to use language like that in this environment.”

“Oh! Sorry about that, ma’am, slip of the tongue.”

Wilbur snickered and Schlatt refrained from giving him a second hit. Respectable adults surrounded them and respectable adults they needed to be.

"Anyways, we're here to talk about the children. Alright, so first I'd like to clarify that all of your kids are great students! They all behave well in class under the right conditions, they're all passionate students, and they all have wonderful creative minds. None of the students you're here for have any behavioural problems we'd like to address."

"Seriously?" frowned Wilbur. "Tommy's a model student?"

"If you have questions you can ask them in the individual portion of the meeting, Mr Soot. Thank you."

Wilbur ducked his head and glared at Schlatt who had issued a quiet laugh.

Miss Puffy went on to detail the places where the students involved excelled, where they demonstrated good independence or responsibility or imagination. Apparently Tubbo had done a scintillating presentation on beekeeping when asked to pick his ideal job, although Miss Puffy didn't mention what Tommy's presentation had been on. The other kids all had lovely little stories to be shared about how they'd passed out snacks to kids without as much to eat or helped build block towers at breaktime or been responsible line monitors when the kids had to queue up for assembly outside. She seemed to steer very clear of the topic of Tommy, though.

When she was done explaining how well the kids had behaved this term, Miss Puffy turned to Schlatt and said, "Alright, we're going to do those individual chats now. If the rest of you would like to step outside for just a moment I'll be with you in a matter of minutes."

"Can I stay?" Wilbur cut in. Schlatt turned to stare at him with his best comically disturbed expression - mouth half open, cheeks pushed up in a squint, eyebrows furrowed.

"Well, we do prefer that parents - a-and guardians - have a one-to-one session at some points with their -"

"I wasn't asking you."

"What are you, some kinda fuckin' perv? You wanna sit in on my confidential parent teacher meeting about my son, Wilbur?"

"Yes."

They held a stare for several beats before Schlatt sighed theatrically and leaned back in the chair again, creating a squeak this time that really promised doom if it was tested. "Sure, whatever. Just my kid. Nothin' you weren't gonna hear about another night."

"You can listen in on mine if you want!"

"Why the fuck would I want that?"

"Funny. Tommy's insane."

"Alright then, let's get into it."

Miss Puffy looked a little scandalised. "First of all, I'm gonna remind you about the language rule."

"Jeez, what are you, Mr Halo? He used to fuckin' do this ALL THE TIME last year. Sick of it. Teach a kid the word shit some time. Try it, it'll change your life for the better."

"A-and secondly, Mr Soot, you should really go outside and wait your turn!"

"Come on, Miss Puffy," he lowered his voice to a friendlier, more intimate level, "the boys are best mates. Inseparable. And that means that anything which concerns Tubbo concerns Tommy and anything which concerns Tommy concerns, in the absence of one Philza Watson Soot,  _ me.  _ Now give us the tea."

Miss Puffy hesitated.

Schlatt and Wilbur stared her down.

"Alright. You can have a… a joint meeting or whatever. Just this once, okay?"

"Bet you could use a joint somethin' else right now," stage-whispered Schlatt, receiving a punch of his own for it.

"Thank you very much, Miss Puffy. We don't mean to intrude."

She cleared her throat, looking back at the table behind her for a page of notes. "Alright, Tubbo Schlatt and Tommy Soot… I was mixing these two up for weeks before I got the hang of it! Did you mean to give them such similar names?"

"Nah," Schlatt drawled, "he was like that when I got him."

Miss Puffy cleared her throat. "Okay. Moving on. Tommy and Tubbo have been great students - I already told you all about that in the group session, they're two wonderful little boys. They just have a, eh, a tendency to band together a lot of the time, in the classroom and on the playground. I've been trying to encourage them to talk to other kids a little more, but they only seem to want to play in their little two. I have to ask, do you have any idea of anything that might be happening at home to cause this sort of… well, not that the bond is abnormal per se, but they really hate talking to the other children, and…"

Wilbur studied his fingernails. "Probably 'cause Tubbo's the only person who can stand to be around Tommy longer than an hour. Have you  _ heard  _ that kid? Doesn't half go on. Not excited for him to get older and have opinions and shit."

"Mr Soot, you heard what I said about language -"

"The thing about Tubbo," Schlatt interrupted, "is he's a real quiet kid, alright? Keeps to himself. Don't talk much. If he's at home he's playin' with his toys, he'll tell me about it, I'll say that's great, kiddo, he'll get right back on being quiet. But with Tommy? Yeesh, when that kid's over to play he gets about ten times louder. I have no idea what they put in the water over on  _ your  _ side of town, Wilbur, but it's infectin' my perfectly good son with just the worst energy."

"They make their little business plans, don't they? You ever have them try and sell you something?"

"Oh, yeah, Tommy Trusty, isn't it?"

"Yeah! So annoying. I think he thinks you're some epic entrepreneur or whatever because he's always going on about Schlatt-walking and that."

"You're kidding."

"No, Tommy loves you!"

"Well, tell him I think he's a little shit."

"You're right, but also no."

Miss Puffy leaned forward, as if to stand up, then collected herself. "Sirs, if you're not going to behave how we'd expect you to in a school environment, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Sorry, sorry, lady."

"Good. If we could continue."

Wilbur straightened up further in his chair. Schlatt pushed back his shoulders.

"Alright, so you're not suggesting there's any sort of problems at home that might cause the boys to stick together?"

"Nah," Wilbur shook his head, "they just love each other way too much. It was a mistake to introduce them, honestly."

"Does Tubbo not - I mean, he doesn't hang out with any of the other kids at all?"

"Not really. I tried to put him on the blue table last week away from Tommy on the red table and he cried until I let him stay. And when they're on opposite sports teams for class activities they won't get one another out. I would recommend you two take some time at home - or, Mr Soot, you can leave it to your father - take some time to talk to the boys about making new friends, because it's important to their development and they won't hear it from me."

"Sure."

"Mr Soot, actually, while you're here, I do have one or two notes to give you on Tommy's behaviour in the classroom, if you're willing to pass them on?"

"Do go on." A smile ghosted his lips, but he kept the perfect picture of serious adult figure. Schlatt stepped hard on his toes, but he didn't break, minus the barest twitch of an eyebrow in pain.

Miss Puffy scanned back across her notes. "Alright, let's see what I wrote down… Oh, that's right. Tommy's had a little bit of a history of property damage since he got here."

"Oh, really?"

"Sadly. We keep having to bar him from the sand play area because he tries to eat it, for one."

"Oh, that's not a problem at all, Miss Puffy, he learned that from me!"

Miss Puffy's expression fell into confused suspicion. "... I'll assume you're joking. Anyway, he's also got a habit of stealing the snacks before playtime - more than once we've taken the box out to share and all the flapjacks have disappeared. Does he have problems with eating at home?"

"Not that I'm aware. I don't actually live at home with Tommy, you see, I do live in uni accommodation at the moment. Last year, though - might have to move back in before long, you know how the job market is, eh?"

"Alright, if you're not aware, I'll flag that for a possible revisit with your father when I meet him. And the other thing is that he likes to bite… well, anything, if he can get the chance."

"That's just what Tommy's like. Not much to be done about that one."

"... If you say so."

"Hold on," Schlatt held up a hand, "so Tommy's eating fuckin' sand, stealin' snacks, and bitin' shit, and you don't know if he has a problem with food? Sounds pretty fucked up to me."

"Mr Schlatt, I don't want to have to ask you again -"

"Come on, Schlatt, it's Tommy, I don't know anything about him. I literally haven't lived with him since he was eating nothing but the same one kind of baby food for every meal. Kids are weird, right?"

"Wilbur, that sounds like a real problem -"

"Not my problem. She can take it up with Phil if she wants to."

"Whatever. Please at least tell me Tubbo's not eatin' leaves or somethin' stupid."

Miss Puffy shook her head, and Schlatt relaxed back into the chair. It creaked again, a little more harshly.

"No, Tubbo's had perfectly normal eating habits. It seems like he only drinks water, though, he never takes a juice box or a carton of milk."

"See?" Wilbur elbowed Schlatt. "You're a terrible influence."

"Stop tryin' to paint me as some kind of fuckin' deadbeat alcoholic father-"

But the elbowing movement had given the unsteady chair beneath Schlatt one too many jostles, and after one last moment's valiant effort to keep itself together, the seat collapsed flat under the effort and left Schlatt sprawling on the floor.

"AH, FUCK, MY BACK!"

"MR SCHLATT!" Miss Puffy shouted hotly, rising from her own chair to tower even in her tininess over the fallen father. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave!"

"Oh, come on, lady, are you serious?"

"Yes." She folded her arms.

Wilbur laughed. "You heard her, Schlatt, get your arse out of here!"

"That goes for you too, Mr Soot," Miss Puffy insisted, and Wilbur suddenly felt a lot smaller under the kind of stern glare only a primary school teacher can give. "Property damage caused by yourself, and not to mention all that swearing - you're really not being good role models for the children! You're lucky they didn't see you, behaving like that. Plus, I heard you making all those references to substances this evening. It's not appropriate for a school environment."

"Hey," Wilbur protested weakly, hands already fishing for his phone to tell Phil he'd be bringing the boys back a little early, "Schlatt was the one talking about weed!"

"You insinuated multiple times that he'd been drinking. Whether he was or not, I don't want to hear it, and I'm asking the both of you to go."

Schlatt finally pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself off. "Miss, uh, Miss Puffy-"

_ "Now." _

And that was how, each for the time after they thought was the last time, Schlatt and Wilbur got kicked out of a classroom.

"You know that was your fault, right?"

"It was  _ your  _ fuckin' fault for pushing me!"

"I wouldn't have  _ had  _ to hit you if you hadn't been fucking teasing me all evening -"

"And the comments about my habits, you're so fuckin' rude, it's just uncalled for -"

"I swear to god, if you breathe a  _ word  _ of this to Phil -"

"Hey, Tubs!"

They'd run across the children by this point, muttered bickering stringing them all the way through the outside corridor, past a confused looking Mr Velvet and the rest of the group they'd gone ahead of, and into the cold air of the quad outside. Tubbo had recovered from a particularly aggressive tackle on Tommy's part to see his father approaching, and his tiny face had lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Papa!"

"Hey, kiddo," Schlatt repeated, crouching to receive his son who was fast approaching at a running start, "how've you been?"

Tubbo jumped into his father's arms and kicked his legs until he was swinging in a circle, held up by the armpits. "Cold!"

"It's been  _ ages, _ Wilby, you took ages in there, we had to start fighting!"

"Sorry, Toms, mate," Wilbur exhaled, suddenly assaulted by an iron grip around his entire right leg, courtesy of one angry blonde six-year-old brother. "You been alright?"

"Yeah," grumbled the child, "freezing though."

"Coats, Schlatt, we forgot to give them coats."

Schlatt and the Tubbo in his arms came to a rest. "Ah, sh- sure, that was it."

"What did Miss Puffy say about me, papa?"

"Oh, she said you're great, sweetheart! You wanna get back to the car?"

"Yes please."

"Wilbur, lead the way," Schlatt grinned, eyes flicking aside and then back to Tubbo as he grabbed his son's hand.

Wilbur paused. Shook his leg as violently as he could without damaging any children. Then said, "Tommy, can you let go, please?"

"No," insisted the child, and picked his legs up to wrap his entire body around his brother's leg.

Another pause.

"Alright."

They managed to get all the way out to the car park in front of the school before Tommy finally gave up on koala-ing Wilbur's shin and dropped back down, running towards the nearest silver car with zero hesitation. "Tommy, love, that's not our car!"

"It's grey!" called back the loud, high-pitched voice of the boy who was definitely breaking into the wrong car. Before Wilbur could walk up (hey, he wasn't gonna run, did he  _ look  _ like Tommy's dad?) to yank him off the handle and out of reach of the vehicle, the car alarm started blaring, and Tommy startled straight back into Wilbur's waiting arms, eyes wide and watering with shock-induced tears as he was carried another five or six cars down to the right place.

_ "This  _ is our car, Toms. See it's got the little lion on the back? That other one was an Audi."

"I don't care about cars, Wilby, I just wanted to get warm."

"Well you'll get- bloomin' warm in a minute, mate, I'll turn the heating up as soon as you've got your seatbelt on."

Tommy made a few more noises of frustration and climbed up into his seat. On the other side of the car, Tubbo did the same, fastened in by his father, who fumbled the click of buckle into fastener several times under Wilbur’s playfully judgemental eye from the driver’s seat. He coughed and mimed a bottle, obscured to the children by Schlatt’s frame, and was promptly slapped across the shoulder before Schlatt ducked back out of the backseat to ride shotgun.

“Papa, papa, please, what did Miss Puffy say?”

“I told you, Tubs, not a lot. She said you’re doing great. We, eh, we didn’t catch it all.”

“What about me, Wilby?”

Wilbur looked back and straight past Tommy to reverse out of their space. “She said… what? Sorry, Toms, give me a minute.”

“She said you were eating sand, kiddo,” Schlatt elaborated with a smirk.

“Oh! Yeah, I did! I wanted to see if it was any good compared to the sand in Brighton.”

The smirk suddenly doubled. “And was it?”

“Well, not so much. You really have to dig for it on Brighton Beach, Tubbo’s Dad, but here we just have a sandpit and it’s a bit dry and not as salty.”

“That’s great, kiddo.”

“Tommy,” Wilbur put his best responsible-adult voice on, “you’re not supposed to be eating stuff that doesn’t go on a plate. Not at school, anyway. If I’m in charge you can eat whatever you want.”

“Even knives?”

“Yeah, as long as you cut it up small enough.”

  
“How do you cut up a knife?” Tubbo wondered, unprompted.

“With a second knife,” Tommy explained, exasperated.

“Oh. That sounds a bit pointless.”

“Anyway, I’m not planning on eating knives, because I have plenty of food saved up.”

Wilbur, finally able to lift some focus from the road now that they were driving straight, used it to turn his train of thought back to the topic at hand. “Yeah - Tommy, why were you stealing snacks from the snack box? Miss Puffy said those were for the whole group.”

Tommy slouched in his seat and pulled at the safety lock on the seatbelt, testing how far it would stretch. “Hungry.”

“And Phil’s not feeding you enough at home, then?”

“No!” protested Tommy, “Dad’s been feeding me fine! I’m just hungry all the time.”

Tubbo chipped in. “I think he’s getting bigger. We used to be the same height, now he’s got an inch on me. I bet he’s going to be massive after Christmas.”

“Well, you’ll see me all holidays, won’t you Tubbo, so you’re not going to notice if I do get massive, are you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Wilbur smiled, maybe a little too softly for his image, eyes on the road. “I bet you will, Toms. We’ve always been a tall family. Don’t know where we get it from, Phil’s so normal.”

“It’s the fridge!” supplied Tommy cheerfully, a moment of stunned silence following during which he offered no further explanation.

“Okay then,” Schlatt humoured the kid.

“Papa, when are we going to see Tommy and his family in the holidays?”

“You can go over whenever you want, Tubs. Just gimme a little warning the day before, okay?”

“What, so you can sober up?” whispered Wilbur.

“I will throw the steering wheel,” hissed Schlatt.

“Yes, Papa!” agreed Tubbo.

Tommy frowned. “So we can hang out every day if we wanted?”

“Ask your Dad about that one, mate.”

“Where is he, anyway? Surely you weren’t supposed to bring Tommy to the Parents’ Evening, Wilbur?”

“No, Phil -” Wilbur hesitated “- he had some business to attend to. Can’t be here tonight.”

“Oh.” An idea popped into Tubbo’s head. “So can we have a sleepover?”   
  
“I don’t know. Schlatt, can Tommy sleep over at yours tonight?”

“Does he have a toothbrush?”

Tommy beamed. “I brought my toothbrush specially because I wanted to ask that.”

“Really!”

“Yeah, I’m all smart like that.”

“That’s really clever, Tommy.”

“I’m always clever.”

“Even when you eat sand?”

“Yes, Tubbo, especially when I’m eating sand. I learned it from Wilby, anyway.”

“I thought you said it was in a story you read?”   
  


“Yeah, I lied. I didn’t want Miss Puffy knowing Wilby eats sand, it’s a bad influence. Besides, I knew you can’t read, you won’t question me.”

Schlatt coughed. “You kids, uh, sure do talk to each other about a lot of stupid sh- stuff.”

“Oh, they never shut up, we’ve been over this.”

“Tommy’s a terrible influence on Tubbo, he’s usually so quiet and -”

“You’ve literally already said all this! You  _ are  _ drunk.”

“I hate you so much, what the f-rick am I doing here?”

“What the frick am  _ I  _ doing here?”

“Driving to my house, where you’re gonna leave me alone with these two little b- boys, all damn night.”

Wilbur’s expression lifted. “Wait, I don’t have to stay over too?”

Schlatt sighed. “Please, Wilbur, and I’m asking ya nicely here,  _ please _ don’t dump Tommy Soot on me and vanish like their mothers.”

“Let me think about it.”

The boys were anything but willing to give Wilbur a moment to think.

“Oh, please, Wilby, stay over with us!”

“It’ll be so much fun with all four of us, we can have sweets and chocolate and pillow fights and stay up really late until after ten -”

“- and we don’t even have to tell Dadza -”

“- and it’ll be really fun, please?”

Wilbur, eroded by the incessant chatter of the boys in a matter of seconds, was finally sanded flat and his head fell as far as it could without hitting the steering wheel and making him crash the car. “Fine. Double sleepover at the Flatt. Not exactly where I wanted to be tonight, but it’ll do.”

“Why,” murmured Schlatt under the cheering of the kids in the back, moving on to discussing every detail of exactly what they’d do at the sleepover, “what were you supposed to be doing tonight?”

“Smoking with the SootHouse,” Wilbur explained, simply and equally quietly.

“Ah, sorry about that. I knew you were high, though.”

“No, I’m not, that’s the problem!”

“It’s a fucking  _ problem  _ that I’ve gotta deal with  _ two  _ of them tonight.”

“Hey, it’s not so bad. You’ve got me, mate.”

Schlatt just leaned away, propped his elbow on the windowsill, and stared out at the cold, dark night. Yeah. He had Wilbur. And Wilbur would get him through the nightmare of fatherhood in one piece. No matter how much they attacked each other on every front, they were still pals, just like they’d been when he was barely older than Tubbo and Will barely younger. He had his son and he had Wilbur, and Tommy was there too. So he’d make it out alive.

And he wouldn’t even need to drink tonight.

Well, not much.


End file.
